What is the global temperature index? How is it calculated and how does one interpret the numbers?
Don’t feel bad about being clueless on the ABC Morning News “temperature index.” No one on the USATODAY.com Weather Team could figure it out. In 1998 Chris Vaccaro called ABC and find out what’s going on. Here’s his report: “I finally spoke with Ronnie Riece who is the only person there during the daytime. She is the daytime producer for ABC World News Now. She asked me if I was familiar with the show, I said no. She then went on to explain that the shows is on early in the morning and isn’t exactly the most serious news show. The temperature index has been on the program for a few years now. Its purpose is to poke fun at the other indexes that people don’t understand. She said there is an actual mathematical formula that only one person knows and computes using data from several cities.
